How to make a Photo Card Template

In this tutorial I will show you how to prepare the PSD template – Valentine’s Day cards in Digital Scrapbooking style. Naturally, in a similar way you can make a template for each theme. The only limitation is your imagination!

What will you need?
SCANNER – before starting work, prepare a set of objects that we will use in our template. These may be buttons, ribbons, decorative papers, all of what we can scan with our scanner.

For the need of this guide, I scanned old papyrus and made clip art depicting two cartoon birds.

STEP 01. The work begins by creating a Photoshop document with a target size. The most popular size is 5×7 inches. From Photoshop menu choose FILE -> NEW. Choose Preset -> Photo, Size: Portrait, 5×7

STEP 02. In the beginning I make background of my paper. For this purpose, use previously prepared scan of old papyrus. Move the scan to the newly created document

STEP 03. The next step will be to diversify the background. Select a portion of the background with RECTANGULAR MARQUEE TOOL, then copy the item to the memory of the computer (CTRL C) and paste (Ctrl V)

Pasted element is now on a new layer

STEP 04. New background item is given to the color correction. From the menu, choose IMAGE -> Adjustments -> Hue / Saturation

Used values: +10 HUE, SATURATION: +10, LIGTHNESS: +45

STEP 05. In order to distinguish visually darker and lighter part of the background from each other – paint a horizontal line, using tools from the palette

STEP 06. Paint hearts on a new layer. Use tools: LASSO TOOL – to make a contour of the heart. I use Photoshop Chalk brush to paint the contour of the heart. No attention has been paid to paint the heart precisely. Any inaccuracies are indicated. Improvise!

STEP 07. This is the final result. Painting of such hearts is very simple, you should not have any problem

STEP 08. Then start with a picture frame. Create a new layer. in a new layer – select the area and fill with the color #e9dbb6

STEP 09. With RECTANGULAR MARQUEE TOOL select and cut out the center of the rectangle

STEP 10. In BLENDING OPTIONS settings of the layer frames – add shadows in the Drop Shadow and Inner Shadow bookmarks

STEP 11. This is the frame with the added shadows

STEP 12. To give the frame a retro style – make a characteristic for old photos sharp / teeth edges. With POLYGONAL LASSO TOOL select the outer edges of the frame, which, after selected should be deleted

STEP 13. This was made for the whole frame

STEP 14. Tilt the frame with FREE TRANSFORM tool

STEP 15. Open the PSD file with a pre-prepared graphic elements. Birds were made in Adobe Illustrator and are on separate layers. What if you can not paint these objects? Use your scanner and scan interesting pictures – it’s all Digital Scrapbooking mystery